Some things are not easy to get use to in the Philippines. Last Sunday as we walked into our Filipino ward for Sacrament meeting we heard the Christmas carol “Silent Night” being played on the piano. Christmas officially begins in the Philippines on September 1st. This means that Christmas trees and decorations adorn shopping areas/malls, offices, and homes throughout the Philippines and are displayed until the first week in January..
True Faithfulness
I recently shared in a blog post about the new temple in Urdaneta. There was an open house where the local community, governmental and barangay officials, and non-member friends can tour the temple before its the temple is dedicated. These open house tours last for 3-4 weeks then the temple is closed and cleaned thoroughly before it is dedicated. The Urdaneta temple was dedicated by Elder Dallin H. Oaks the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church on April 28, 2024. Elder Oaks served as the Area President while an Apostle from 2002-2004 and during that time he developed a special affection for the Filipino people. I’m sure this is why he wanted to come and dedicate the Urdaneta Temple, even though he is 92 years old. It amazes me, since I’ve traveled internationally a number of times and know the toll an international flight of 20+ hours has on the body.
Filipino Temple Attendance
Brother Gutierrez was one of the first Filipinos to be baptized a member of the Church in the Dagupan (a city near the Urdaneta Temple) in the early 1960s. When Brother Gutierrez learned of the Urdaneta Temple Open House, he wanted to attend. However, since he is 93-years old, in poor health, and is bedridden, his family weren’t initially supportive of his going to the open house. However, he insisted that a way be figured out so he could attend the open house. Eventually, his children agreed that because of his faithfulness over the years and his burning desire to go to the open house, they began to work on coordinating a trip to the temple open house which was about an hour away. However, since he was bedridden, this wasn’t going to be an easy task. After a lot of coordination with the temple, a van was rented, a stretcher procured, and over forty of his immediate family were invited to attend the open house together.
After the van arrived at the Urdaneta Temple, family members loaded Brother Gutierrez on to a stretcher and carried him into the temple, up and down stairs (since the elevator wasn’t designed to accommodate a stretcher), until they had completed the open house tour. The sight of an elderly gentleman being carried through the temple on a stretcher touched a lot of hearts.
The picture below was taken after an oral history interview of Brother Gutierrez capturing significant events, recollections, and insights of this pioneer Filipino saint. This interview was recorded at this home. In future years, events like this will taken from oral histories that we and others have done to document the history of the Church in the Philippines. Many of these events and experiences may be included in book that will be similar to the recent history of the Church that is captured in the Saints books that documents the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The events and experiences for the Four Volumes of the Saints books come from journal kept by the early pioneers from the founding of the Church, stories of those that were driven from their homes in Nauvoo, IL and walked fifteen hundred miles across the great plain in the U.S. in 1846-47 to the Salt Lake Valley, and through 2020. Sometime in the next few years, the Philippines will have a similar Saints like book.
Brother Gutierrez, granddaughter, son-in-law, wife, our manager MeGa Gapiz, and a grandson and granddaughter-in-law in the Brother Gutierrez’s bedroom in their home.
Not Worthy to Be in the Same Room
I’ve commented several times about the faithfulness of the Filipino saints. This faith seems to be most pronounced with some of the early pioneer Filipino saints who were amount the first to accept the gospel in the Philippines back in the early 1960s.
While this story may seem like an anomaly, I can assure you it isn’t. We have been privileged to be a part of numerous interviews where different but similar stories have been shared. One such story related to the temple is as follows:
In interviewing a mission leader in a mission in Northern Luzon, the mission leader (mission leaders are responsible for temple recommend interviews for people that live in a district vs. a stake where the stake presidents do temple recommend interviews), was interviewing a couple that were planning on attending the Manila Temple. They lived a long way from the Manila Temple. They were rice farmers and live hand-to-mouth and had very little money for non-farm related expenses. They had ten children and had save for a long time to put aside enough money to pay for transportation to go to the temple and be sealed to their children. As the mission president interviewed the couple he found out how many children they had. He interviewed each of the children as well.
As he concluded the interview, he noted that he had only interviewed eight of the children. He asked the parents where the other two children were. Almost embarrassingly the father said that they didn’t have enough money to take all of their children to the temple to be sealed as an eternal family unit. In future discussions, the mission president learned several interesting facts. One, the journey to the temple would begin at 1:00 am. The family would walk for a half an hour to the road and be picked up by an oxen pulled wagon and taken to a place where they would be able to catch a trike ride to the bus station. They would purchase bus fare which totaled P20 for each ticket (this is ~$0.36 US). From the time they left home until they arrived at the Manila Temple it was a twelve-hour trip.
The mission president shared that he could imagine the strain it would be for these parents to decide which two children they would not take with them to go to the temple to be seal with the rest of the family. Now here is the kicker to this story. These faithful Filipino parents would make this trip as a couple every three months to attend the temple staying three days at the temple doing multiple temple endowment sessions and proxy sealings. They stayed at no cost at the patron housing at the temple site before returning home. Keep in mind that this ritual was related 4-5 times a year. When I hear stories like this, I hang my head in embarrassment when I fail to attend our local Sacramento Temple more frequently when faith people like this sacrifice so much to participate in the blessings of the temple. It is at times like this when we hear similar stories that we don’t feel worthy to be in the same room with these faithful Filipino saints.
Five Apostles Visit the Philippines
There are only twelve apostles in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and five have visited the Philippines in the last fifteen months. In the area where we have lived for the last eleven years, after moving from the San Francisco Bay Area, only one apostle has visited during the time. This provides some perspective how the Philippines is viewed by the leadership of the Church. The most recent visits were by Elder Gary A. Stevenson and Elder Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve was in the Philippines for ten days. We were fortunate to attend two events where he and his wife were in attendance and spoke in each of these gatherings.
Sister Stevenson Speaks in a Devotional
The Storm’s with Elder and Sister Stevenson
One of the events we attended that were held to coincide with the Stevenson’s visit was a Filipino Cultural Presentation. For those of you that have been to the Oahu, Hawaii and made the trip to Laie and attended the Polynesian Cultural Center presentation of the different cultures in the South Pacific in dance and song, this was a similar type of event but focused on the multiple cultures that exist throughout the Philippines. It was a ninety minutes event and my view – specular, keeping in mind that these are young men and women ages 14 to 17 years of age and not professional performers. Here are a just three clips from the 90-minute presentation:
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxMbGB4biriz1BGmCqhaqlXFFBCPDCAHXj?si=0HkR8U_V-6SHS2mr
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6yBjwT0URBViXsG2wY7jUYe8F000cLPG?si=i_92msBpAEhhYWEv
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxM1TC5nrZq5mCy4s_inCkkpJ4qav3VBxX?si=yr5_VxvOuYi_6Nid
As mentioned, the youth that performed these dances only practice a couple of times a month before the performance….the Filipino people are natural performers.
Elder Kearon’s Visit with the President Marcos of the Philippines on his office
Things I continue to learn about the Philippines….
There are no trash container/cans put out at the curb (there are no curbs per se in Philippines neighborhoods). Trash bags are stacked everyday and picked up in an open truck and stacked as high as it can be stacked. Note the electrical and cable grid above.
I’ve seen trash stacked twice as high with trash as this truck is stacked.
Thought of the Day:
Faith is the power to act. Obedience is the price. Love is the motive. Christ is the reason
Scriptural Thought:
Alma 11:43. “The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form.”